Wired for Crime; Competition in Science

This user-friendly volume by Daniel Dennett distills a career’s worth of thinking on evolution, consciousness and free will. The pumps of the title are thought experiments “designed to provoke a heartfelt, table-thumping intuition”; each chapter sketches a technique to guide the imagination or bolster the intellect. The chapters on evolution are especially good, showing how mindless repetition can build intricate creatures. The book is full of advice, including a little trick to find the weak spot in an argument: search for the word “surely.”

In this book, the criminologist Adrian Raine plays down nurture and claims that “the seeds of sin are brain-based.” He stresses the predictive power of a low resting heart rate, which can lead to a chronic hunger for stimulation. After offering potential cures, from omega-3s to biofeedback, he turns speculative, predicting that by the 2030s, states may detain citizens based on the criminal potential of their genes and brains. Although eager to prevent violence, Dr. Raine, who has a very low heart rate, admits that “it sends shivers down my spine to think I could be convicted without committing a crime.”

This panel, the sixth in a series on the deadly sins, will ask how the competitive drive may lead scientists astray. Morton Meyers, a radiologist at Stony Brook University, will discuss two cases of rivalry for the Nobel Prize. Ivan Oransky, of Reuters Health, will talk about his blog Retraction Watch, which treats both honest mistakes and fraud as a “window into the scientific process.” Harold Garner, a physicist and entrepreneur, will talk about his database Deja Vu, which uses algorithms to spot “self-plagiarism.”

EXHIBIT

Built for Speed. California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco. Opens May 10. For ticket information, visit calacademy.org.

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As San Francisco prepares for the America’s Cup yacht race this summer, the California Academy of Sciences opens an exhibit on the adaptations that allow animals to swim faster. It will reveal the mechanics of the sailfish, which moves at highway speeds, and the short-fin mako shark, which can migrate up to 2,500 miles. Visitors can build imaginary speed-fish and can examine a jumbo squid, which uses jet propulsion. In the Orca Lab, volunteers will assemble the skeleton of an 18-foot juvenile orca that washed up in 2011.